What noble eloquence in Tacitus! Indeed, eloquence was natural to the martial and world-subduing Roman; but his poetry is for the most part of a secondary order. It is often said of French poetry that it is more eloquent than poetic. Of English poetry the reverse is probably true, though of such a poet as Byron it seems to me that eloquence is the chief characteristic.
Byron never, to my notion, touches the deeper and finer poetic chords. He is witty, he is brilliant, he is eloquent, but is he ever truly poetical? He stirs the blood, he kindles the fancy, but does he ever diffuse through the soul the joy and the light of pure poetry? Goethe expressed almost unbounded admiration for Byron, yet admitted that he was too worldly-minded, and that a great deal of his poetry should have been fired off in Parliament in the shape of parliamentary speeches. Wordsworth, on the other hand, when he was not prosy and heavy, was poetical; he was never eloquent.
A fine sample of eloquence in poetry is Browning’s “How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” Of its kind there is nothing in the language to compare with it. One needs to read such a piece occasionally as a moral sanitary measure; it aerates his emotions as a cataract does a creek. Scott’s highest excellence as a poet is his eloquence. The same is true of Macaulay and of Campbell, though the latter’s “To the Rainbow” breathes the spirit of true poetry.
Among our own poets Halleck’s “Marco Bozzaris” thrills us with its fiery eloquence. Dr. Holmes’s “Old Ironsides” also is just what such a poem should be, just what the occasion called for, a rare piece of rhymed eloquence.
Eloquence is so good, so refreshing, it is such a noble and elevating excitement, that one would fain have more of it, even in poetry. It is too rare and precious a product to be valued lightly.
Here is a brief example of Byron’s eloquence:—
“There, where death’s brief pang was quickest.
And the battle’s wreck lay thickest,
Strewed beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagles’ burning crest,—